Nights of the Crusades: The Knight of Judgement

Insects skittered into the cracks of my cell. They foretold something beyond my senses. Torchlight flickered in the darkness. It seemed my friend had returned. My jailer. I touched the cold bars, allowing myself to dream of another day to live. Where there is life there is hope.

I found the scent of smoke and wine as he strode into my sight. He smiled, but there was pity in his eyes. This jailer was not responsible for my situation, so I did not hate him. He showed me mercy once before.

I had not seen anyone for what could have been days, but God only knows. Darkness shrouds time.

He spoke. “My apologies for taking so long to visit you. Here, you must be hungry.”

I had intended a greeting of my own, but I could not contain my hunger. I devoured the bread he passed to me as he filled a cup with sweet smelling wine.

He pulled a stool close and said, “your tale has been with me since our last meeting. Could you tell me more of it?” He looked away, “for fate is fickle.”

“What do you mean by that?” I gulped the wine. “Is it now my last day?”

He grimaced. “I should not have said that.” He spoke through his fingers as his hand sought to cover his mouth. “I am charged to take you to the executioner when the dawn comes.”

I felt like spitting into his face. But my rage was impotent. “You are like the Knight of Judgement; repaying a good deed with evil. Why should I give you anything?”

He said, “Who is this Knight of Judgement?”

I moved back from the cell bars and crouched among the infested rags of my bedding. I sulked at the injustice of it all. “A traitor and his friend, Abdullah, met this knight many years ago. This is the tale...

... “We have spent weeks like this and it has worked so far, do you have a better plan for us?” panted Abdullah. He slumped against the alley wall. In this dark corner of the slave markets they hoped they had lost the mob of angry men at their heels.

“I cannot keep up with you. If you must thieve, you can go without me,” said Firuz, the accursed traitor of Antioch. They had come to Ma’arra to seek refuge from the fanatical soldiers of the western countries and the bandits that haunted the wilderness.

“We are not thieves! These merchants are swimming in gold and keeping it from the poor. Us. We are helping them become better Muslims. ‘Take alms of their wealth, wherewith thou mayst purify and sanctify them.’” Abdullah looked beyond Firuz, checking that no one had followed them.

Firuz adjusted the bandages on his stump of an arm. It had been weeks since a man he had betrayed carved it from his body; and it had not healed well. Living in dirt forced him to battle an infection, and he was growing tired. He closed his eyes, trying to calm his breath.

Abdullah licked his hands, searching for the crumbs of the bread he had dropped in their flight. “I thought you said you were once a captain of men, Firuz? When did you lose your courage? You could leave; do I have a chain around your ankles? See if life is easier beyond the walls with the Franj and the beasts and cutthroats.”

The words bit into Firuz’s heart. It was not easy here. The people looked at his rags, and his lost arm, and took him for what he was soon to become – a thief. And although Abdullah was good company, Firuz couldn’t forget that he had been abandoned once before when Abdullah thought him an impediment. Abdullah had also become more involved with the fiery preachers at the Wall of Poets, a place Firuz avoided.

Firuz said to Abdullah, “we are making enemies by only stealing from the nobles and merchants. It is not a good plan for the future.”

Abdullah smirked through the dusk, “when a rich man steals from the common folk he is called a noble or a merchant. I do not feel bad. ‘Be ye staunch in justice, even though it be against yourselves or kindred, whether the tyrant be a rich man or a poor man.’ ”